


El niño estrella

by navaan



Category: Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Character Study, Family, Friendship, Gen, Gen Fic, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>His mother calls him her <i>niño estrella</i>, but only when they are alone. Only when there’s no-one around to hear. It’s her secret name for him and he loves it. It’s theirs, only theirs and nobody can take it away from them.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Hernan Guerra becomes Superman. But that's neither the end nor the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	El niño estrella

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fresne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/gifts).



> For the most part this only takes the direct to DVD movie canon into account - not the additional comics dealing with their backstories and not the mini-episodes, although I tried not to actively contradict too many of those, but for Hernan’s backstory which it contradicts completely. :P

Kirk is in the middle of the room, working at one of the holographic computer screens, moving things around and wearing this eerie focused look that he gets sometimes. It gives him a more inhuman look than the red eyes by themselves do and Hernan leans back his head to let it rest on the back of the sofa and watches for a moment in fascination.

Bekka has left them two days ago and it has just been them in the tower since then. “We should think about a new headquarter,” he comments.

He knows he has Kirk’s attention, although his friend gives no indication of stopping his work, his hands still gliding over the virtual keyboard at a speed that isn’t even close to Hernan’s, but too quick to simply be human. It’s one of the small things that make them alike, that sets them apart from the rest of the world. “We should think of inviting friends over more often,” he proposes in a deadpan voice, without moving his eyes away from his screen.

“All our friends are here,” Hernan points out and shrugs. “All the friends we have on the planet at least.” Bekka must be light years away by now. Together with one of the humans who for the longest time had styled himself as Hernan’s harshest critic, the only enemy that counts, and is now trying to extend his knowledge.

“Then maybe it’s time to make some new friends.”

He shrugs. “There are no protesters outside our building today.”

Krik finally looks up and grins. It looks strange on his pale face, and a fang is showing, which is a surprise, because his fangs only show when he’s hungry. “Brave new world.”

Hernan laughs and he feels like this is the first time that this whole thing feels actually amusing.

They are going to change their ways now and maybe the world is changing around them too. “Perhaps we should find new friends,” he concedes. If there’s him and Kirk and Bekka, there must be more. They must be in need of friends too. “Have I shown you the plans of Luthor’s little satellite”

“What do you think I’ve been working on all day?”

They're just Batman and Superman right now. But the way they are working together it might just be enough for a while.

 

* * *

The first time he meets Lois Lane she is sitting in the rubble of a destroyed building after an Intergang attack and he is hovering above her in the air, studying her with a cold expression. She is nothing to him, but he knows she’s been sprouting Luthor’s propaganda since before he’d even revealed himself to the world. She’s general Lane’s daughter. He wouldn’t expect anything else from her.

“Tell me,” she says when he turns away. “What is it like to be alone?”

His lips tighten into a thin line before his gaze settles back onto her. “Tell me, Miss Lane, what makes you think being one among many is so much better?”

Her eyes narrow and he can hear her heartbeat quicken. She’s afraid, but standing her ground and he always appreciated that in the people who opposed him, who hated him. They were all driven by fear, like animals, like cattle, like the people who had lashed out at his family and friends time and time again when he was young because in their eyes they didn’t belong.

But at least a few of them are brave enough to stand their ground. Most are just cowards. He hates cowards.

He’d seen the justice of humanity. He’d seen how well humanity stood together, how humanity dealt with outsiders when they feared for their own wealth or even just the scraps on their tables.

And what did someone like Lois Lane even know about any of it? What did she know about being told that your home wasn’t yours at all? Who was she to tell him what it meant to be alone?

He surveys the destruction around them and smiles and nods to Steve Trevor when he arrives in full battle armor, looking grim, and speeds away, leather coat billowing behind him as he moves up and away, picturing what they are seeing in his mind with satisfaction.

 

* * *

His mother calls him her _niño estrella_ , but only when they are alone; only when there’s no-one around to hear. It’s her secret name for him and he loves it. It’s theirs, only theirs and nobody can take it away from them.

He loves sitting on her lap on the porch as she hums a song more to herself than him, her hands busy with podding peas. He hums with her, her long brown hair slipping through his fingers as he reaches up. He’s safe here, he’s loved. She’s the world to him and there is nothing more.

 

* * *

“You are the last of your kind, Superman,” Luthor spits and it’s supposed to insult him, to get to him, to hurt. Hernan knows that he could have liked this man for his brilliant scientific mind, for his guts to stand up to him. But Luthor decided to hate him long before Hernan heard his name for the first time.

“I spent all my life preparing for you,” Luthor tells him. “I know more about you than you do. And now the world does too.”

That is how the the footage extracted from the pod he arrived in ends up on every major news station and that is how Hernan learns that something that belonged to him is being kept in secret government labs, has been there for as long as he’s been alive. It’s his heritage and everyone has gotten there before him. That does hurt.

The anger he feels at the thought does not surprise him. But the cold that settles in when Luthor smiles at him like he’s been defeated is.

He’s never done anything to earn this man’s hatred. Just like his father never did anything to the people who called him despicable names for having come to America to find a better life for himself and his family.

“We found you,” he told him, when Hernan had asked him one day if it had ever been worth it, coming to the United States. “We would never have found you if we hadn’t been in New Mexico at the right time. Of course, it was worth it.”

His smile still lingers in Hernan’s memory, as does the memory of the affectionate pat he got on the head. Back then nobody told him that men with weapons had scourged the desert to find a helpless child from another planet. His parents had never said much more than how they thought a meteor had hit and then instead they had found him in a pod. Today he has an idea of what would have happened if fate hadn’t sent him the Guerras.

It’s a mercy he’ll never forget.

“You’ve been made for something better,” his father had always said, right before he had explained to him again why it was necessary to hide who and what he was.

“They will fear you.”

But some people always feared him, the child of immigrants come to take his place in a society not his own, even where others had accepted him, because his English was flawless and his skin the right shade of pink or sometimes even because they truly believed that all humans were equal.

But not even that extended to him.

And Luthor wasn’t the only one to make it clear to him: He was a threat. An anomaly. A monster to be dissected in a lab.

He is sure he wasn’t this cynical when he was younger. But it’s what they made him.

 

* * *

“Don’t cry, Hernan. You didn’t mean to,” his mother whispers. “We know.”

“Aren’t you scared?” he asks in a quivering voice and his parents exchange a look. The burnt smell of the curtains he has set on fire is still filling the whole flat like a terrible reminder of what he has done. Since it happened he has not even once dared to take the hands from his eyes.

His mother sewed those curtains herself. He remembers how how happy she had been when his father had brought the fabric home, yellow with little pictures of corn on it. He’d thought it quaint and unappealing. Now he’s just sorry. He isn’t sure he didn’t do it on purpose, but he hopes not.

“You’re our little gift, Hernan. Never believe otherwise. You are our little boy that came from the stars.”

“We love you,” his father adds. “We are proud of you. We will learn to control this.” It sounds like he’s the one who has to learn.

Hernan isn’t crying anymore.

He’s a gift. And he has a gift.

He learns fast.

“See? You’re special,” his mother whispers into his hair. “Never forget that. Never be sad. Wherever you are, we’ll always love you. And you’ll never be alone. Nobody can do what you do. It makes you special.”

 

* * *

“Everyone has a place and you think yours is far above ours.”

He smirks as he looks down at Lois Lane who stands beside Steve Trevor, who is trying to hold her back. Hernan can’t help it, he knows he shouldn’t rise to the bait, but he says, hovering in the air and rising very slowly. “I can fly, Miss Lane. You are welcome to join me up here anytime.”

“Tell me,” she echoes her very first words to him, “where do you go when you want to be alone?”

 

* * *

He is 20 when his parents die in a car crash and he never learns who caused the accident, just knows another car was involved and that whoever they were they sped away and left his parents on the side of the road without help, without calling for an ambulance.

He can’t fly yet. He can jump so far that sometimes it feels like he’s not needing the ground to walk on anymore, but it’s not the incredible freedom of flying. And he’s traveling. He had wanted to see Mexico, he’d worked on a fishing boat and joined an expedition to the Himalayas. His strength is growing every day and so is his knowledge. He knows so much, but he doesn’t know himself and it scares him.

But he’s traveling and that means he’s far away when it happens.

“You’re our gift, niño,” his mother tells him. “Never forget it. And come home safely when you’re ready. We’re waiting.”

He wants to tell her about flying, how he dreams about it, how he thinks that sometimes he’s close to actually doing it, but he doesn’t want to make her worry even more.

Two hours later she’s dead and he doesn’t even hear it happen. He’s preoccupied and too far away, too young and inexperienced to even realize he could have been there in a flash.

He has hidden for too long, has tried to be normal, has failed to embrace his powers sooner.

Every time he comes to their graves to lay down flowers he realizes that he could have been there to save them if he’d cultivated his powers before, if he’d used his gifts freely.

It reminds him that only after his parents died he learned what it meant to be truly alone.

 

* * *

He travels again, because he feels like he has no real home left now. He spends a year in the wilderness of Alaska, because he can’t stand the voices of humans calling out to him all the time. But they never leave him.

When he returns to the world, Superman is born, even though he doesn’t have a name yet. Hernan Guerra is done hiding. He’s not afraid of those who feared him since birth. Not any longer. He’s alone and has nothing to lose. And perhaps he understands justice better than any of them, because he has nothing to be afraid of.

What has he to fear? He’s indestructible. He soars through the clouds like he was never bound to earth and maybe he never truly was — but he wants to be.

His parents always told him his gifts were meant for greater things.

And he always believed them.

 

* * *

It’s Lois Lane who gives him the idea for the name. She uses it like an insult, another way to stir fear of his powers, another way to defend her own world view..

“The only superman on the planet. Who can ever stand beside a being of such arrogance? Some may think he’s a god, but the violence and destruction that follows in his wake tells a different story — that of a self styled god who knows only his own justice and not the power of creation.”

Hernan wears the name proudly as he introduces himself to the world, trying to slight those who’d rather see him slip back into hiding because he’s a threat to their safe and boring little lives, to their own grip on privilege and power.

Hiding did not save his parents.

He’s done with hiding.

And he doesn’t fear those who are afraid of him any longer. They will learn to fear him.

He’s held on to his anger in silence for too long. He knows how to unleash it now.

 

* * *

If he thought he was alone before, revealing himself to the world sets him apart even more. He revels in it, testing his own powers and celebrating his own glory, until he hears of the mystery woman who saved a family in Rome by stopping an out of control car with her bare hands. Pictures make it to the Internet and speculation and conspiracy theories spring up.

He wants to see for himself.

Another like him out there.

Another god-like being.

When he and Bekka meet it’s in the midst of battle and she is magnificent. She throws a car at him when she perceives him as threat and he takes a hit at her to test her strength. Then she catches his fist in her open palm and stares in surprise.

He laughs.

And laughs even more when she launches herself into the air to fly.

They soar to the sky together and she looks at him with distrust and caution.

He is still laughing.

 

* * *

Lex Luthor is a brilliant scientist. Students are trying hard to learn from him and there are many brilliant men that one day might be able to help him. He keeps an eye on all of them. He reaches out to some of them and some seem to be interested enough to actually talk to him. Some are cautious. Some are afraid. But some are true scientists and they see the chance for advancement and talk to him like he’s one of them.

Hernan understands brilliance.

His mind works fast and still he gets no closer to solving some of his own riddles. Luthor reveals his secrets to the world to show people why they should be frightened, but he doesn’t know that he gives Hernan something better.

He gives him a legacy of a fallen civilization. He knows a bit more about who he is — and who he is, is Superman.

And he comes from a better world that has been lost.

 

* * *

Learning about his Kryptonian heritage, about the bits and pieces that he can gather from the broken pod gives him too much room to fantasize. He knows his father’s face now, like to think he was a good man who had wanted only the best for his son.

There is no message no guiding light. But he and Kirk can make the best of the technology.

Sometime he wants more. But he only has stories and little facts.

 

* * *

“Madame President,” he greets her, and out of courtesy and the respect his parents instilled in him, he lands in front of her. “You wanted to see me.” He wonders what his mother would have thought about any of this, can imagine how proud she would have been for her American citizenship on the day America got a black female president, how she would have said excitedly: “See, Hernan. You came so far. You’re meeting the president.”

President Amanda Waller looks him over, unafraid and considering. “In fact I did. There are concerns.”

“I’m aware.”

She smiles. “You are the last son of Krypton, but as long as you are here you’re either a citizen or a threat, Superman.”

“My parents taught me to respect the flag,” he answers haughtily, sticking up his chin in silent challenge. Kryptonian they call him now, since Lex has made his knowledge public. It irks him that the man knows more about his heritage than he does himself. “Perhaps we can come to an understanding. You have something that belongs to me and I want it back.”

“I understand,” she says. “And I want some assurances. There’s blood on your hands. Intergang? The army says you endangered one of our pilots in the test run of Steel 4.”

Hernan can’t help but respect her for the calm, steady beat of her heart and the stubborn way her head is held high. Amanda Waller understands power. She understands struggle. She’s been afraid before and she’s done being afraid. She probably understands something about owing it to yourself to not be hiding.

She also understands that power comes at a price.

And she’s willing to pay.

They don’t trust each other. They don’t even necessarily like each other.

But there is some recognition, some form of mutual respect.

At the very least they can use each other.

And that’s what they are going to do.

 

* * *

A video captured with a phone shows him and Bekka side by side taking out the bombers in the Metropolis stadium. “... the government confirmed it. The president asked for the involvement of both Superman and the recently gone public Wonder Woman. The press conference happened at a convenient time and many questions remain. There has been no word of how many terrorists will stand trial.”

The unasked question remained, could the world trust beings of godlike power. As always Lois Lane was the first to ask the question out loud.

 

* * *

“Will I ever be allowed to use them? My powers?”

“One day,” his mother said and went back to humming her song, as she worked on the small garden patch father had made for her.

“When?”

“When the world is ready, Hernan. Trust me on this.”

She had never lied to him and he wanted to believe her more than anything.

 

* * *

He follows the rumors of a rampaging serial killer who kills criminals in Gotham and he can hear Kirk Langstrom long before he actually sees him. He moves faster and so very silently across the dark rooftops and through the dark alley. He’s frantic and it’s the sound of squeaking rats that finally lead Hernan to the sewers.

The smell is disgusting, but he wants to see.

He finds the man hunched over, hears the sucking sound, isn’t surprised by the horrified deer-in-the-headlights look as Kirk suddenly stares at him with blood red eyes, rat still caught in his fangs, blood flowing down his chin.

“Are you here to kill me?” the man asks in a calm voice, that is more collected than his body language would give him away.

He could, of course.

“No.” He studies his quarry for a long moment before crouching down to be on eye level with the disheveled man. “Dios mio, what happened to you?” It’s like he’s come face to face with one of the demons from his mother’s stories. But the state of him, the fact that he seems to expect his end to come now, the fact that his heart is beating faint and too slow, makes Hernan doubt there’s anything to it. This was a man who’d been turned into a nightmare, but who was fighting his nature. It takes a glance at him to finally realize. He nods at the rat. “I’d offer you some of my own, but it wouldn’t go down well. I’m sure you still need your teeth.”

The vampire-man eyes him warily. “You could burn me with one look.”

“I could,” he agrees.

“You should. I crave blood. I can’t stop. I can’t rest. The smell, the draw…” For the first time he sounds agitated.

“I think what you need right now is a friend,” he says and nods. “You’ve cleaned the streets of one of the dirtiest cities in the world. You have a gift and you’ve been using it. Now you need the time and safety to learn and control it.”

They stare at each other in silence, neither of them moving a muscle, gouging the other person’s reaction. “You don’t understand, Superman. Nobody can hurt you. You’re not afraid of me.”

“Hernan,” he introduces himself and holds out a hand. “My name is Hernan Guerra. And you are scared.”

The young man laughs, hysterical, his eerie red eyes shining in the dark. “Who but you wouldn’t be scared of this?”

“I was scared once too. Not anymore. That other people are scared of you doesn’t mean you actually are a monster. Don’t start believing it if you don’t want to be.”

The laughter stops immediately. The young man stares at him, red meeting blue in the dark and uncomfortable air of the sewers. The body of the rat has fallen to the ground with a wet and unpleasant noise. It takes a whole minute — Hernan is counting — until the man put out his hand, his gaze still wary as if he thought this was a trap. “Kirk,” he said slowly, “Kirk Langstrom.”

“Kirk,” he said and nodded. “Do you want me to give you a lift out of here? All of GCPD is looking for the vampire killer. Catchy name. I’d look for a new one.”

“Flying?” Kirk asks and seems intrigued for the first time.

Hernan shrugs. He enjoys flying, but most people seem to think letting him carry them is not a good idea. He’s not going to take it personally if Kirk Langstrom refuses.

“Why not?” Kirk asks. “Sounds exciting.”

His voice sounds so deadpan and unexcited and wary that Hernan has to laugh.

He realizes he’s never had a friend before. Once upon a time he had a family. And while they are as different as they could ever be, he feels a kinship with the young man before him.

“Come on,” he says. “Then you can tell me all about what happened to you.”

 

* * *

He flies Lois to a nearby rooftop and she actually laughs, excited. “Not so long ago you declined any offer to give you a lift.”

“Things change,” Lois says and she’s still breathless from laughing. The happy expression softens her features. “So, Wonder Woman and Lex went out to the stars? Back to her home planet?”

He nods. “Mapping the universe.”

“Using the Kryptonian maps.”

He nods again. So many misconceptions had governed all of them for so many long years and now he can look back at all of it without bitterness, perhaps with some regret.

“Why didn’t you go? Krypton is gone, but the knowledge, the maps. It’s your heritage.”

“This is my home, Lois. I never knew another.”

She stares, then she smiles. “Good to know.”

 

* * *

He knows his father now.

Zod.

He knows who brought about the end of Krypton, too.

Zod.

It’s not a burden. It’s a challenge not to repeat the mistakes of the past. His parents always told him he could be better. He knows with their memories, he can be better.

He knows his mother now too.

Lara. Wife of Jor-El, who should have been the father of the child growing in the pod.

Hers is his heritage too and the hopes of her and Jor-El live on in him. Jor-El is not his father, not genetically, but Hernan can live up to the scientist’s legacy anyway, remember Krypton as it was and could have been, protecting his new home as only he could.

After all he did not share a genetic code with the Guerras either, but they were the only parents he had ever known. And they had put their hopes in his greatness. He did not have to live up to the name of a mass murderer. He could live up to the example of decent people who had taken in a little baby and protected and loved it, even when their lives at times had been hard.

Krypton is part of every fiber of his being.

But more than anything else he is his parent’s son, the son of the people who'd brought him up.

Nobody can take that away from him.

Finally he’s ready to put his anger away and try and be even better.


End file.
